The Puffer Forum

I hadn't thought about it when I bought it, but can a rubberlipped pleco go in the tank with F8's? Do I have to have a certain kind of pleco for brackish water?

i dont think there are any BW plecos...

No, plecos are sensitive to salt.

Thank you. Haaving a lot of problems posting questions, after I push sumit , some loop error comes up. Any ideas?

Not entirely correct. There are several brackish water members of the Loricariidae. Your problem is that they aren't the commonly traded plecs. For example, both Hypostomus ventromaculatus and Hypostomus watwata are both brackish water specialists, the former only (apparently) found in estuarine parts of the Amazon and the latter common among mangroves. While these fish certainly avoid high salinity water, they do seem to be tolerate slightly brackish water as part of their normal life.

http://filaman.ifm-geomar.de/Summary/Sp ... p?id=48185
http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/Species ... p?id=49355

Even in the good ol' US of A, one plec has become established in the brackish waters around Florida, H. plecostomus.

http://nis.gsmfc.org/nis_factsheet.php?toc_id=191

I don't know enough about these fish to accurately quote their upper limits as far as salinity go, but assuming they have the same sort of tolerances as other "freshwater" catfish or cyprinids, the upper level is probably around 1.003-1.005. So not enough to make these suitable in a "true" brackish water tank with monos and scats, but perhaps adequate for use with mollies, gobies, etc.

On the downside, none of these species seems common in the trade, if traded at all. None of the widely sold species are salt-tolerant beyond simply being hardy.

Cheers,

Neale

Boxermom wrote:No, plecos are sensitive to salt.

they do seem to be tolerate slightly brackish water as part of their normal life.

Tolerate, being the word stressed here. I know they poke around at the BW estuarine mouths on occasion but how long would they be happy not being able to leave BW--ever?

That's ok, I'll just leave him in the ten gal for a while and see if he gets along with the dp's I should be putting in there this weekend.
Thanks for the info though

Good question, to which I can offer no answer. But from what little info there is, seemingly these are permanent inhabitants of brackish environments. For H. plecostomus, it probably isn't "ideal", but H. ventromaculatus seems to be a species that isn't found (much) outside brackish water environments. The parallel might be with things like kribensis; kribs can live indefinitely in brackish water, but they don't need it, and in some contexts (specifically breeding) freshwater is better.

Cheers,

Neale

Pufferpunk wrote:Tolerate, being the word stressed here. I know they poke around at the BW estuarine mouths on occasion but how long would they be happy not being able to leave BW--ever?

If it's a common pleco, they they grow quite large & will definately outgrow a 10g.

It's a rubber lipped pleco only get 5 inches, I think. But even if he does get to big for the ten g I have several bigger tanks he can live in